On December 16, 1689, the Convention Parliament began, not only transferring power from one king to another, but establishing procedures and rights into the British Constitution, both of which were copied in the United States of America a century later, with the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
The more opportunities there are in a Society for some persons to live upon the toil of others, and the less those others may enjoy the fruits of their work themselves, the more is diligence killed, the former become insolent, the latter despairing, and both negligent.
Anders Chydenius, The National Gain (1765), §20.
On December 15, 1791, the United States Bill of Rights became federal law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
On December 15 in 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially became effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that had, by enabling the Volstead Act, prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for any other than medical and industrial uses.
December 15 birthdays include that of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad [pictured above], 1861, first Head of State of independent Finland, serving in this capacity first as leader of the Senate and then as Protector, or Regent. In 1930 he became Prime Minister, and in 1931 was elected President, leaving office in 1937.
During the Civil War of 1918, his anti-socialist refugee government, Valkoiset, or “Whites,” opposed the “Reds,” a Social Democrat Party faction, for control of the government as it transitioned from Russian rule as a Grand Duchy, to independent status.
He died in 1944.
“I grant you . . . that the Pope ought to be independent. But could he not be so at a somewhat less cost? Is it absolutely necessary that 3,124,668 men should sacrifice their liberty, their security, and all that is most precious to them, in order to secure the independence which makes us so happy and so proud? The Apostles were certainly independent at a cheaper rate, for they did nobody harm.
Edmond About, The Roman Question (1859), H. C. Coape, translator.
On December 14, 1819, Alabama became the 22nd state of these United States.
On the same December date in 1918, Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King Väinö I, renounced the Finnish throne.
In 1939, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland and starting the Winter War.
On December 13, 1636, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians.
The National Guard of the United States traces its heritage back to this event.
Anders Chydenius, Thoughts on the Natural Rights of Servants and Peasants (1778).
The exercise of one coercion always makes another inevitable.
The person who sent me here has been arrested. Now I’m going home.
What Svinhufvud said to the Tomsk, Siberia, police station attendant after news of the February Revolution reached him in his forced exile from what was then still the Grand Duchy of Finland.
On December 12, 1939, Finnish forces defeated those of the Soviet Union in the first major victory of what became known as the Winter War, in the Battle of Tolvajärvi.
December 12th birthdays include:
* Erasmus Darwin (1731) – English physician, slave trade abolitionist, inventor and poet
* John Jay (1745) — First Chief Justice of the United States
* William Lloyd Garrison (1805) — American abolitionist, editor of The Liberator
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